Lasting Powers Of Attorney

We were delighted to have Fidel Beauhill as a speaker at our September PIM, talking on the essential topic of Lasting Powers of Attorney.

Fidel has been running Legally Secure, here in Bristol, for the last 3 and a half years, but he’s been an Estate Planner for nearly a decade.

He specialises in Estate Planning for those with small and medium size businesses and is sympathetic to the financial and family issues involved if dealing with businesses.

This complex area covers

Wills
Trusts
Insurance
Company / partnership structures and agreements
Powers of attorney

Most people do not know that if you become ill or have a car accident, so you become unable to manage your business or your property portfolio – or your personal affairs – even temporarily – then without a Power of Attorney in place, your family and business partners are stuck!

Your bank accounts, including the business account, will be frozen and you may have to wait months (and spend a lot) to apply to the Court to appoint a professional – who will often be slow and expensive and have no real knowledge of you and your wishes.

The same applies if the worst happens and you die unexpectedly – everything is frozen immediately, causing endless difficulties and constraints for your spouse, family and business partners.

If you are a landlord who manages your own portfolio or have an agent to do so on your behalf, then it is critical that you have the legal means in place to have your ongoing affairs managed by those you trust, if you were to become physically or mentally unable to do so yourself.

The good news is that there are lots of things that can be done to solve these problems, including

Life insurance policies can be written in trust – so the money can be paid out separately, without waiting for probate – so your family can pay the bills and buy food.
Company documents can be put in place to allow your co directors or business partner (or someone else suitable – your husband or wife may not have the right experience) to carry on running the business
Powers of Attorney can allow your family to look after your health and your business partners to carry on running the business if you are ill, or even away for a while

What is a Lasting Power of Attorney?

There are 2 different types of Lasting Power of Attorney. One is for your Health and Welfare – and one is for Financial and Property affairs (you can have more than 1 of these if you have different businesses).

A LPA for your Property and Financial affairs allows an Attorney to make decisions about paying bills, dealing with the bank, collecting benefits, selling your house, etc.

In simple terms, an LPA allows you to plan in advance the decisions you want to be made on your behalf if you lose capacity to make them yourself, the people you want to make these decisions and how you want the people to make these decisions.

Fidel brought a light hearted and entertaining presentation style to this serious subject, while highlighting just how serious this whole area is – and how essential it is for people to put the right plans in place in advance. It was an eye-opening experience for most of us.

We bring all sorts of different experts to our PIMs to explain more about these less known areas to our community, along with property experts.

So do make sure you join us on 27 October 2016 at Holiday Inn, Bristol City Centre, 6-9 pm.

For more info and to reserve your place CLICK BELOW!